NCM Hall of Fame Inductee Helped Save Corvette From Extinction

Award ceremonies can get pretty boring, especially after this year’s “Movies That No One Saw Ceremony,” better known as the 2015 Oscars. However, the induction of Russ McLean into the National Corvette Museum Hall of Fame is one that you may not want to miss.

I mean, how could you not want to attend a ceremony honoring the man credited with helping to save the Corvette from extinction?

As the story goes, during the mid-1990s when McLean was working on the Corvette team, GM decided to shut down the production of the Corvette to focus on what the company thought were more important models, as reported by the OaklandPress.com.

1997 Corvette C5

“They told me to let the car die,” said McLean, who will join Rick Hendrick and GM Engineer Herb Fishel as a 2015 inductee this Labor Day weekend. “I wouldn’t do that.”

Instead, McLean and other members of the Corvette team began secretly working on a model that would later become the C5, a move which could have potentially had them all looking for new jobs. Most of the secrecy is covered in the iconic book, All Corvettes Are Red, which speaks of a number of people that helped keep the Corvette alive along with McLean.

“My job was to let the Corvette die, but together we did all we could do to improve the C4 and keep the C5 viable,” said McLean. “I’m very happy to be representing all of those people in the Corvette Hall of Fame.”

I’d say this is one honoree that every Corvette fan in the world should thank. So yeah, an award seems awfully appropriate.